Dino Nameplate

I've been going crazy trying to make things for Corbin's new room so he isn't staring at blank walls. I've already posted the Dinosaur Lamp we made. Now I'm going to show you the nameplate I made him. 

It's really nothing fancy, but it turned out super cute and was a very quick project. I don't even have full pictures of the project, I just think it's adorable and want to share. 

I bought a wood dinosaur and a small wooden plaque at Michaels for about $3 total. 

I painted the dinosaur according to Corbin's demands requests. The plaque I used a cream color to match his soon to be bedding. 

Once the plaque had dried I printed out Corbin's name to use as a template. I cut it down to size with safety scissors. Again. Do you see a theme here? I can NEVER find adult scissors when I need them. Ever. 

 Using chalk, I colored on the back of the paper so it would leave a mark on the wood when I traced over his name with pencil.

Flipping the paper over I traced over his name, pressing pretty hard, to leave an impression and a chalk print on the wood. I always want to show you how well it works, but my camera doesn't agree. This is what came of my attempt at photographing it. Sorry, I tried and failed. Just trust me, it works awesome!

I painted his name, according to his requests, and finished it off by tracing the edges with a paint pen.

What do you think? I think it turned out pretty dang cute! Now I just need to paint his room so I can hang it up! 

DIY Candle Decoration

These have been all over Pinterest lately. I just happened to have a few white candles laying around and a crap ton (yes, that's a true form of measurement) of tissue paper. So 2 of the monsters and I decided to try it out!

For supplies you need a white candle, white tissue paper, regular printer paper, permanent markers, wax paper (which of course isn't pictured, I always forget one thing in my pictures!) and a heat gun. I'm assuming you can use crayons, colored pencils or other things as well, but I just followed what the directions said.

Tape a square of tissue paper onto a printer paper to prevent ripping and go to town!

Corbin used a stencil to make a dinosaur and wrote his name.

Dylan wanted to make a Minnesota Wild candle for his Dad, so I printed the symbol out onto paper and he placed the tissue paper over the template for him to trace. I've heard that you can print on the tissue paper and it works just as well, but we were out of colored ink and Dylan wanted to actually color it himself.

Once it's done, carefully cut the the tissue paper as close to the design as you can get. Cut a piece of wax paper that can wrap around the candle, with enough extra for you to hold onto.  You want to make sure the wax paper is as smooth as possible. If it's wrinkled, it will show up after you attach your design.

Using your heat gun, carefully move back and forth over the design. Don't stay in one spot too long! I noticed you can tell when the image has been transferred because the tissue paper kind of melts into the candle and you can't see the edges anymore. Depending on the size of the image it shouldn't take more than a minute or 2.

Carefully peel back the wax paper and make sure everything is attached. If it's not, wrap it back up and use the heat gun over that part again.  

After that, you are done! You now have some awesome custom candles! The possibilities really are endless and I have ideas for a lot more candles for my house.

 
Have you ever tried this trick?   

 

Ice Cream Magic

The first time my boys saw the commercial for Ice Cream Magic the boys wanted it. Of course. They want everything they see on TV. Every single time the commercial came on they begged for one. For months. To save my sanity, I decided that the Easter Bunny should bring each of them their own Ice Cream Magic. I used a 40% off coupon from Michaels, so they were only about $6 a piece.

Unfortunately we were in the middle of moving into our house on Easter and the days afterwards. The house was chaos, we had very little food items, it just was not happening. So instead of an occasional "I want that!!" I was getting a constant stream of "Can we make Ice Cream???". Which actually worse. Way worse. 

We finally got around to making some ice cream and I thought I would share my review of Ice Cream Magic.

The idea is fairly simple. You fill the "cone" up with ice and salt. 

Attach the metal bowl onto the cone and fill it up with the ingredients. The base of the basic recipe is 1/4 cup of Heavy Cream and 2 tablespoons of sugar. From there you can add extracts, cookies, fruits, etc. 

We used 2 different extracts/concentrates. Dawson originally wanted Vanilla but ended up with Root Beer, Corbin wanted Root Beer and Dylan wanted Coconut.

Mix it all together, snap on the 2 lids and shake. And Shake. And shake some more.

Corbin shook for about 3 seconds before he wasn't shaking anymore and I had to take over. 

Dylan and Dawson decided they were going to dance while they shook theirs.

According to the instructions you get "Delicious Ice Cream In Just 3 Minutes!"

Honestly it took about 5 minutes and Dylan's for some reason took 7. Not horrible, but they were definitely tired of shaking towards the end. 

The amount of ice cream you actually get is very small. It doesn't look anything like the heaping bowls they show in the commercials, but the boys were happy with it. I think they were just excited to make their own ice cream!

Flavor wise, it was really good. The coconut was delicious, but I'm a huge fan of coconut. They boys dug right in and loved it!

 
Personally, I would give Ice Cream Magic about a 3. It was fairly easy to make and use, but the amount it made was pretty small. The boys give it a 5, but I didn't expect any less! I think these will be really handy when we go on our weekend getaways Up North. For the price I paid, it was worth it.

Have you tried Ice Cream Magic? What do you think?  

 

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Cookies

Last Saturday I was craving baked goods, but I was feeling way too lazy to make anything in depth. Don't you hate when that happens? David offered to go buy me a donut (aww...so sweet) but that just wasn't going to cut it. 

I browsed Pinterest for a while and came across these Quick and Easy Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Cookies from Mississippi Kitchen.

  

I'm not kidding you when I tell you these are the quickest cookies ever. Probably not ever, but they are insanely quick and easy to make. Plus, with only 5 ingredients, they don't take much effort. No mixing things in 6 bowls while adding this and that at just the right time. Perfect for those lazy days!

 The boys and I loved these cookies. Try them out and tell me what you think! 

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Cookies

1 package (8oz) Cream Cheese (Room temp)

1/2 cup of Butter (softened)

1 cup Sugar

1 cup all purpose flour

3/4 cup chocolate chips

 Extra Chocolate for drizzle if wanted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat together the cream cheese, butter and sugar until creamy. Add the flour and mix until a dough forms. Mix in your chocolate chips.    

Drop by tablespoons onto a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until the bottoms lightly brown. 

If you want, you can drizzle melted chocolate over the top. 

I of course didn't, because that's a lot of extra work that I didn't want to do that day. 

So go out and make these cookies! You'll be happy you did!  

April Ipsy Glam Bag

My first Ipsy bag finally arrived!!! I think I'm in love. This bag is definitely more fitting for me than Birchbox is. Guys, you get FULL SIZED make up products! Plus, every order comes in an adorable little makeup bag. Not a paper one. An actual fabric makeup bag. How amazing is that?

So this is my April Ipsy bag! This month was "Pretty in Pink".

I don't know if every bag comes in one of these hot pink envelopes, but it totally made my day. 

This is the awesome makeup bag they sent. Super cute. I love that it's a plastic type material so it's easily washable. I need that in a travel makeup bag!

   

This is what came in my bag. I seriously can't get over that it's full sized items! The hair product obviously isn't, but that's totally ok.

 First we'll start with the nail polish, only because it's my least favorite item. I think it would be awesome for a nude french manicure, but that's not something I do very often. Well, ever. I prefer color on my nails. But I'll keep it around just in case. Maybe I'll use it when I get married. 

Next, onto the eyeshadow. I received a pink-ish/bronze-ish colored mineral eye shadow. I'm a huge fan of mineral make up so I was really excited to get this one. My friend, Angie, received an eye shadow duo, which was really nice too. I think I would have been happy with either product.

The blush is next. I was lucky enough that mine didn't break during shipping. Angie's did and from what I hear, other peoples did as well. Hopefully Ipsy takes care of that. Right now I'm insanely pale because winter refuses to end, so this blush is a little bright on me right now. It will be perfect once I get a little color!

Finally we come to the trial size of Sexy Hair's Soy Renewal. Love! It smells good, made my hair shiny and less frizzy. I haven't been wearing my hair straight for a couple of months now, but it will help tame the morning after curls when I need to leave the house without doing my full hair routine.

I'm definitely a HUGE fan of the Ipsy bag. If you are looking for a "girly" monthly subscription, go for the Ipsy! For $10 a month, you won't regret it.  

DIY Dino Lamp

My little Monster, Corbin, finally has his own room. Unfortunately, since he was sharing our room he didn't really have any decorations. A week before we closed on his house I frantically started making things so he wouldn't have a bare, boring room when we moved in.

My (I should say our since David helped) first creation was this Adorable Dinosaur Lamp.

I had been searching for a Dino lamp for a while and they were all either ugly (for my tastes) or really expensive. I didn't want to spend a lot, so I came up with this idea.

At Walmart we picked up a lamp kit (about $7), Mason Jar ($1) and a Lamp Shade ($7).

For a base we bought a Decking post cap for about $1 at the hardware store. It was the perfect size and it already had a hole  drilled in it.

 For inside the jar we bought these cute little Dinosaurs at the dollar store. We actually have a million of them already, but Corbin straight up refused to give any up for his lamp.

I had David drill a hole in the top of the mason jar. Please ignore his insanely messy workspace. I'm not allowed to touch it.

 He used a dremel to create a groove in the bottom of the post cap to allow space for the lamp cord. You could probably do this with a rounded wood file or a drill if you are careful enough. 

We spray painted the base and the top of the jar. See that white stuff in the background? Yup, that's snow and ice. We're hardcore like that.

While those were drying David used a Glass drill bit (don't know the technical name, sorry) and very slowly drilled a hole in the bottom of the jar. 

Then it was time to put it all together. The lamp kit has all the directions on how to wire it and all that jazz. Just follow those, and string the cord through the jar and out the base. Make sure not to attach the top yet because you'll need to fill it.

I'm not sure what David is doing here. I just think the picture is amusing.

Once everything is put together, it's time to fill the jar up! Obviously we used Dinosaurs, but you can use whatever fits your theme.

 
Once everything is together, glue the jar on the base and the cap on the lid. Now your lamp is done. Buuut...if you want to get creative you can decorate that lamp shade too!

In hindsight, I probably should have used contact paper for a stencil instead of freezer paper. It worked well, but I did dent the shade a tiny little bit with the iron when I stopped paying attention. Oops. It's not a huge deal though. Learn from my mistakes. I just used fabric paint and stencils to create Dinosaur Silhouettes on the shade to add a little something extra. 

Corbin LOVES his new Dino lamp! We put a 15 watt light bulb in it and he's currently using it as his night light. It's the perfect addition to his new room!